Yevgeny Prigozhin, the former hot dog seller turned Wager leader, met with Russian President Vladimir Putin days after his brief mutiny, the Kremlin has claimed.

Putin is said to have met with Prigozhin and his commanders on June 29 – five days after Wagner troops marched towards Moscow and seized Rostov-on-Don.

The three-hour meeting, first reported by the French newspaper Libération, saw 35 people invited, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Prigozhin reportedly met Putin and the head of the National Guard, Viktor Zolotov, and Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s main intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service.

This would have been the first known meeting between Prigozhin and Putin since Wagner’s failed uprising, which amounted to one of the largest challenges to Putin’s authority in his more than two decades in power.

‘The only thing we can say is that the president gave his assessment of the company’s [Wagner’s] actions at the front during the Special Military Operation [in Ukraine] and also gave his assessment of the events of 24 June,’ Peskov told reporters.

Wagner commanders each told Putin their version of events before pledging loyalty to Russia, the Kremlin said.

‘The commanders outlined their version of what happened (on June 24),’ Peskov said.

‘They emphasised that they are staunch supporters and soldiers of the head of state and the supreme commander-in-chief.

‘They also said that they are ready to continue fighting for the Motherland.’

During a separate meeting today with defence officials, Putin is believed to have said that Wagner, a private paramilitary group, is fully funded by the state.

Wagner has been given tens of billions of rubles in public money over the past year, Putin said according to state-owned news agencies TASS and Ria Novosti.

‘I want to point out and I want everyone to know about it: The maintenance of the entire Wagner Group was fully provided for by the state,’ the president said.

‘From the Ministry of Defense, from the state budget, we fully financed this group.’

Concord Management and Consulting, a catering company owned by Prigozhin, earned a further 80 billion from state contracts, such as supplying food to the army, Putin added.

Prigozhin bristled on Telegram the day before his rebellion, blasting the army’s top brass and accusing Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, of ordering airstrikes against Wagner fighters.

‘The evil borne by the country’s military leadership must be stopped,’ he said.

On the morning of June 24, Wagner fighters took over Rostov-on-Don, 600 miles south of Moscow, before moving north to Moscow.

But with only 125 miles between Wagner fighters and the capital, the coup was abruptly called off.

President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus had brokered a deal between the Kremlin and Wagner to end the mutiny, later confirming that Prigozhin will be exiled to Belarus.

Yet where Prigozhin or his fighters ended up after staging a rebellion against Moscow’s military leadership has been unclear ever since.

Prigozhin has not been publicly seen since June 24.

Lukashenko said the war tycoon was in Belarus on June 27.

‘I see Prigozhin is already flying in on this plane,’ Lukashenko was quoted as saying by Belarusian news agency BELTA. ‘Yes, indeed, he is in Belarus today.’

But he told reporters on July 6 that he believes Prigozhin is in Russia.

That morning, Prigozhin was in St Petersburg and then ‘maybe he went to Moscow, maybe somewhere else, but he is not on the territory of Belarus’, Lukashenko said.

It raised immediate questions over the sturdiness of the deal, with Lukashenko adding that Wagner militants have not yet taken up his offer to relocate to Belarus.

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